


Saints Drowning

by brasspetal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Consuming, Dark, Kissing, M/M, Post canon, Violence, blood and breath, love affair with death, maddening sense of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 00:36:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11909547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brasspetal/pseuds/brasspetal
Summary: He distracts himself in the delights of blood pooled at the edge of a knife.





	Saints Drowning

He distracts himself in the delights of blood pooled at the edge of a knife. There is calm here where dust or time can’t begrudge him the mystery. The mystery of _him._

Will’s image like a saint drowning and he takes it, clasps it in his palms.

“You see me…”

_You breathe me._

Will recognizes the petty distractions but Hannibal caresses them forth into black oblivion. He kisses like madness. The curve of him like marble come to life.  

_Dear Will,_

_I imagined consuming your heart and I was filled. Filled with hollow Earth and song._

He leaves these little pieces of paper for Will to find, littered and torn from parchment. _Come find me._

He conforms to society in the way that the old gods do, the fiendish creatures do. He interlaces his fingers with the hand that could break him.

_Dear Will,_

_I made you from the sea and painted your shadow._

“You could end me here.” Hannibal sings to the night and Will smiles like starlight. He conforms to the things he devours and Hannibal has never seen anything so shining and resilient. Will presses his teeth to his collarbone and mouths _‘Subvert me’_ Hannibal would wrap the length of his palm over his skull and enclose his fingers in his curls, like crushing flower petals.

_Dear Will,_

_Even light needs to eat and breath. Show me the hooks which keep you tethered._

Hannibal would cleave out the artery of the world. He’d present it to his god as an offering. _Take me. Take this._ Will would sit on his throne of bone and ash, he’d smile, smile, smile. They were wild, lacking a whole. He’d tap his finger on Hannibal chin and turn his face towards the shadow. He’d kiss him once, so softly at the corner of his eye. It would crack him open.

_Dear Will,_

_I watched you bring the blade down and noted your fragmentary hesitation._

Hannibal carried Will home when he couldn’t speak. When guilt wrecked his lover entirely.

“Do not fear it…”

Will wept gracefully beneath the bed and Hannibal came to kneel beside him. He took his face in his hands. “I know the anatomy of your self-doubt.” His cheeks are rosy; effusive.

Church bells chime and they make a new cemetery. The world wasn’t ready for two black winged-birds who have placed their beaks in skulls.

_Dear Will,_

_I want to be on my knees. I want crawl to your precipice and take flight._

“Show me.” Will mimics and Hannibal bears his teeth like wolves do. “I see you.”

_You see me._

Hide-n-seek in another mausoleum years after that forgiveness. He gave it so easily.

They make love in the dust and soil, uprooted and tangled. “Your heartbeat is mine” Hannibal had said heavy breath and aching ribs. Will sings, throwing his head back towards infinity.

There’s a primitive tandem to their shared eternal winter. They sweat in the same body and ruin things that claim change. They will change but only together. They will burn but only together.

“The terror of you.” Hannibal whispers and Will understands his adoration. He loves him like no other.  

_Dear Will,_

_Do you listen to every part of me? Can you hear my hollowed heart?_

Hannibal cracks the spine of a book and it claims Will like all binds do. Hannibal remembers reading in daylight where he threw butterfly weed into a cauldron. He remembers claiming a mouth not yet ready for the flame. There were bones soaking in the pot and the sun greeted the bleached white.

He wakes from the nightmare and Will grips his chest like he could tear into it.

“I was at the edge of the world.” Hannibal proclaims.

He can feel Will’s eyelashes kiss where his shoulder meets his neck and the ghost of his breath, “I'll hold your nightmare for you.”

Hannibal had once given him dreams and taught him how to fight them. He had once given him blood and taught him how to bite. He had once given him grief and taught him how to hate. Love grew from the snapped twig of his hate. His hate for Hannibal and what he had unearthed in him.

_Dear Will,_

_I ate the roses you left, even the stems and collected the thorns. I crushed them in my palm and left a love letter on the mirror for you. It says:_

The world roars and we pull out screams from beneath it.


End file.
